Dee Dee Ramone

12:01AM BST 08 Jun 2002

Dee Dee Ramone, who has died aged 49, was a co-founder of The Ramones, the American punk band that had some influence on the English music scene in the late 1970s.

He was also the band's principal songwriter, and there is a certain pathos in the fact that he was the author of their song Too Tough to Die (1985): his is the second death among members of the group in the past 14 months, the lead singer Joey Ramone having died of cancer, also at 49, in April last year.

The Ramones was a four-man outfit, from the Queens suburb of New York, formed in 1974 by Johnny Ramone (the guitarist) and Dee Dee (who played bass) in response to what they saw as a developing - and irritating - gravitas in rock music, characterised by interminable guitar solos and overproduction. As Joey later put it: "We wanted to bring the energy back to rock'n'roll."

Adopting a uniform of leather jackets with torn jeans, and an aspect of studied sullenness, they started out playing gigs at CBGB, a club on the Lower East Side. The club's owner, Hilly Kristal, later recalled: "The first time they played they were terrible. They didn't get good for a few months; but when they did, they played 20 songs in 17 minutes without stopping, and that caused a sensation."

The Ramones were signed to the Sire label in 1976 (their first album, Ramones, was recorded in two days and featured 14 tracks lasting for 29 minutes) and in the same year they toured England. On July 4 they performed at the Roundhouse in north London. Each song was counted in "1-2-3-4" by Dee Dee, and finished with a yell of "gabba gabba hey!" In between, the audience - which included Sid Vicious - was treated to a blitzkrieg of drums and guitar over a menacing, often inane, lyric. In 40 minutes the band got through no fewer than 20 songs. The Ramones' influence on the English punk scene was assured; in particular, they were admired by The Sex Pistols and The Clash.

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In fact, The Ramones were probably more successful in Britain than in America, where they never achieved a Top 40 hit. Their second and third albums (Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, both of which came out in 1977) sold well in this country. In 1980, their cover of The Ronettes' Baby I Love You reached No 8 in Britain. Other albums included Road to Ruin (1978); and End of the Century (1980), produced by Phil Spector, who at one point during the recording is said to have pulled a gun on Dee Dee Ramone; Animal Boy (1986); and Halfway to Sanity (1987).

None of the band members was originally called Ramone. Dee Dee was born Douglas Glenn Colvin at Fort Lee, Virginia, on September 18 1952. His father served in the United States Army, and the family moved frequently; after spells in Korea and Japan, Douglas spent much of his childhood in Germany. According to his autobiography, Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones, published two years ago, Douglas's father beat him regularly; in the late 1960s his parents separated, Mrs Colvin taking Douglas and his sister to live in New York. Here he met John Cummings (Johnny Ramone), Jeffrey Hyman (Joey Ramone), and Tommy Erdelyi (Tommy Ramone); they were, he recorded in his autobiography, "the obvious creeps of the neighbourhood". Douglas dropped out of high school, tried his hand at petty crime and began using LSD and heroin.

In the early days of the band, Dee Dee was the vocalist; but when his voice failed to stand up to the strain, he handed over the role to Joey. From now on he concentrated on playing bass and on songwriting, penning punk rock standards such as Teenage Lobotomy, Rockaway Beach and Poison Heart.

The Ramones toured relentlessly, in between recording albums, and by 1989 Dee Dee had had enough. He made a rap album, Standing in the Spotlight, and then left the band to concentrate on solo albums for independent labels. These included I Hate Freaks Like You (1995); Zonked!! (1997); and Greatest and Latest (2000).

He also published his autobiography and, last year, a novel called Chelsea Horror Hotel; another novel, Legend of a Rock Star, is due to be published in the autumn.

The Ramones finally folded in 1996. Earlier this year they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Dee Dee Ramone married Barbara Zampini in 1997. He was found dead by his wife on Wednesday at the house they shared at Hollywood. Investigators at the scene said they had found "drug paraphernalia", and his death was being attributed to a possible drug overdose.